Windows 11: SSD Storage Almost Full Despite Not Having Many Files

Question

I have an Windows 11 HP laptop with a 256gb SSD, and it's taken me a while to notice this as an actual problem, but the storage space is always absurdly low. I regularly delete and move games and apps I'm not using, even if they aren't large; I clean out my downloads folder; I religiously empty my recycle bin; and I've made sure to run virus scans lately to see if that might be the issue. I have at no point more than 40gb (a very very generous estimate since I refuse to add up all the tiny little apps Windows has) of applications, and while I do download documents for school, they stay in downloads and get deleted every couple months. I am constantly fighting tooth and nail for more than 10gb of space. Frequently, I only have 5gb, and it's a very victorious day when I find myself with 20gb to spare. It appears, although I haven't tested it, that my space decreases quite fast even after a large and thorough cleanup; this may just be my own adding things though.

According to my computer, most of my storage is in apps (granted, this is from the Settings app and I don't know how much I trust it) and I can't think of anything that would lead to this except possibly old game data; but I have doubts that even that would take up more than a few gb. Currently, I have the Sims 4 (20ish gb I believe), a couple dozen PDFs and Excel sheets for school, and several small Steam games (they add up to less than 5gb, I believe) installed.

Summary: My storage (256gb, closer to 231 of actual space) is constantly full to only 20gb or (usually) less of free space. I have tried disk cleanup, Storage Sense, virus scans; I don't keep more than one or two large apps on my device at a time and clear out downloads and my recycle bin somewhat and very often respectively.

Answer 1

Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

Click the link below to download a small free utility named Treesize.

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free

Very Important - to run TreeSize, you must right click its icon and choose Run as Administrator.

Please provide a screenshot of your C drive in that TreeSize utility, so I can see your hard drive and work out where that space is being used and if there is an underlying problem.

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